1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user preference information structure having a multiple hierarchical structure and a method for providing multimedia information using the same which are capable of quickly and easily recommending and providing information desired by information user in a multimedia service system environment consisting of an information provider and an information user.
2. Description of the Background Art
In a multimedia service system environment consisting of an information provider and an information user, the information user can hardly absorb explosively increasing amount of information. The same phenomenon also occurs in the Internet environment that offers huge amount of information as well as in a television broadcast environment that offers entertainment and life information.
Besides, as communication techniques are progressively developed, new providers such as a cable TV appear to provide diverse information.
However, notably, as information providers increase in number more and more, information users find it difficult to quickly and accurately search desired information provided by the information providers.
Accordingly, in order to provide the information users quickly and easily with desired information by the information providers, researches have been conducted and methods have been sought and developed that programs or information preferred by information users (briefly referred to as ‘users’, hereinafter) are recommended or automatically selected on the basis of a user preference value for information desired by users.
In the methods for providing information in accordance with conventional arts, user preference information by items of information desired by users is constructed on the basis of a use record (that is, a user profile) that has been used by a user by direct selection, so as to be provided to users.
However, the information providing methods of the conventional arts are not able to adequately cope with situations that user preference values are differently set for the same information according to user's wish and that relationships between items of information are complicate and a user preference value for a single item has a different meaning according to an environment and a relationship with a different item or may be changed to a different user preference value.
For example, a user ‘A’, who likes a movie in which an actor ‘B’ played a role (a person>an actor>‘B’), may dislike a movie directed by the actor ‘B’ (a person>a director>‘B’). Besides, though a user preference value of an upper item is low, a user preference value of a lower item is high, or otherwise, a user preference value of the upper item may be high while a user preference value of the lower item is low. For these situations, the information providing methods of the conventional arts fail to provide proper information adaptively.
As a different example, the user ‘A’ may want a movie with lots of violence scenes as he or she prefers a movie of violence, but, he may not want violence scenes with a news program or educational information that he or she watches on TV with children, sitting in front of a television set. In this case, the information providing methods of the conventional arts fails to provide proper information according to situations in which in case that an upper item is set as a movie for a violence scene, its user preference value becomes high, while in case that an upper item is set as a news program or an educational stuff, the user preference value becomes low.
Meanwhile, a user preference value on information can be different depending on situations that the user is put, with which the information providing methods of the conventional arts can hardly cope.
For example, the user may prefer a melodrama or a family movie in a rainy day, or he or she may prefer an action movie in a sunny day. That is, for the same movie item, user preference is different according to situations in which the user is put. The information providing methods of the conventional arts do not properly cope with it.
In addition, the user preference may be different depending on a receiving device used by the user, with which the information providing methods of the conventional arts can hardly cope.
For example, in case that the user watches a movie on a TV with his or her family in a living room, the user may prefer a family-rated movie, while in case that the user watches a movie on a TV in his or her own room, he or she may prefer a movie that is not allowed for minors. The information providing methods of the conventional arts do not properly cope with it.
FIG. 1 illustrates user preference values of each item of information in accordance with a conventional art, in which user preference items (i.e., entertainment, music and pop music, etc) are allocated with specific item identifiers (1, 17, 181 . . . ) and correspondingly independent user preference values (86, 43, 27 . . . ).
Accordingly, relationships between each item is not expressed and the user preference value of each item is constantly maintained even if an environment is changed, so that no proper information can be provided for a situation in which the user is put.
In addition, in order to update user preference information, each corresponding item should be included in the use information. That is, in case that classified information only includes a name of a singer ‘C’ and a genre of a ‘new age’, not including ‘entertainment’ or ‘music’, only the ‘C’ item’ and the ‘new age’ item are updated, while the user preference value for the relevant upper item such as ‘entertainment, ‘music’, ‘pop music’, ‘person’ and ‘woman singer’ is not updated.